Extremism

Extremism (represented on both sides of the political spectrum) is any ideology (particularly in politics or religion), considered to be far outside the mainstream attitudes of a society or to violate common moral standards.[citation needed] In liberal societies, individuals or groups that advocate the replacement of democracy with a more authoritarian regime are labelled extremists; in authoritarian societies, those who espouse liberal ideals are labelled as extremists by the ruling class or government.

Much of junk culture has a core of crisis — shoot-outs, conflagrations, bodies weltering in blood, naked embracers or rapist-stranglers. The sounds of junk culture are heard over a ground bass of extremism. Our entertainments swarm with specters of world crisis. Nothing moderate can have any claim to our attention.

If you want to know what's shortly due for the guillotine look for the most obvious of all symptoms: extremism. It is an almost infallible sign — a kind of death-rattle — when a human institution is forced by its members into stressing those and only those factors which are identificatory, at the expense of others which it necessarily shares with competing institutions because human beings belong to all of them.

It seems to me that it is these extremists who are advocating a soft approach. Their oversimplifications and their baseless generalizations reflect the softness of those who cannot bear to face the burdens of a continuing struggle against a powerful and resourceful enemy. A truly tough approach, in my judgment, is one which accepts the challenge of communism with the courage and determination to meet it with every instrumentality of foreign policy—political and economic as well as military, and with the willingness to see the struggle through as far into the future as may be necessary. Those who seek to meet the challenge—or, in reality, to evade it—by bold adventures abroad and witch hunts at home are the real devotees of softness—the softness of seeking escape from painful realities by resort to illusory panaceas.

J. William Fulbright, "Public Policy and Military Responsibility," speech at the opening session of the National War College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Washington, D.C., August 21, 1961, Congressional Record, vol. 107, p. 16444. He was referring to radicals of the right.

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Barry Goldwater, speech accepting nomination for president, Republican national convention, San Francisco, California (July 16, 1964). Congressional Record, July 21, 1964, vol. 110, p. 16388. Senator Goldwater comments that the remark was not original with him: "In fact, I believe Cicero used it in some form at one time, and I have been able to trace it rather faintly back to some of the early Greeks so, while I was very proud of the fact that I made the speech, it's certainly not original".

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?

A free culture, like a free market, is filled with property. It is filled with rules of property and contract that get enforced by the state. But just as a free market is perverted if its property becomes feudal, so too can a free culture be queered by extremism in the property rights that define it. That is what I fear about our culture today. It is against that extremism that this book is written.

I don't believe in any form of unjustified extremism! But when a man is exercising extremism — a human being is exercising extremism — in defense of liberty for human beings it's no vice, and when one is moderate in the pursuit of justice for human beings I say he is a sinner.

In every community there are little knots of fantastic extremists who loudly proclaim that they are striving for righteousness, and who, in reality, do their feeble best for unrighteousness. Just as the upright politician should hold in peculiar scorn the man who makes the name of politician a reproach and a shame, so the genuine reformer should realize that the cause he champions is especially jeopardized by the mock reformer who does what he can to make reform a laughingstock among decent men.

Theodore Roosevelt, "Latitude and Longitude among Reformers, published in the "Century" (June, 1900); republished in The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1910).

My intention is to use music as a tool for social change... Extremism comes in many forms. Some people are extremely capitalistic, extremely reactionary, extremely lazy, dogmatic, pessimistic, hopeful, fearful... I believe, extremism is not always bad — depending upon what sort of "extremism" one allows themselves to indulge in. As a human race, I believe we should be extremely good neighbors, socially conscious, passionate about justice, fairness and truth.

Dawud Wharnsby, when asked about music as a tool to defeat extremism, Illume Magazine (2005).